All posts by Debra Martens

author, editor

photo: Kim Echlin

Kim Echlin

Kim Echlin’s novel, Speak Silence, draws on the testimonies of the Muslim women of Foča.

Mary Lawson’s Solace

Review of A Town Called Solace, Alfred A. Knopf Canada (a division of Penguin Random House Canada) 2021, hardcover, 288 pages.Reviewed by Debra Martens. Crow Lake has its ponds, Road […]

The Alexis Puzzle

My initial reaction to The Night Piece: Collected Short Fiction (Penguin Random House Canada 2020), the most recent book by André Alexis, was this: imagine that you are having the […]

Jessica Lee’s Two Trees

Tim Martin reviews Two Trees Make a Forest

Parsing a Tombstone

Barbara Sibbald on her mysterious discovery.

Mythologizing Magdalena

Nick Coghlan reviews Magdalena — River of Dreams by Wade Davis

To Magdalena

“To the north [of the mouth of the Río Magdalena], beyond a sea of golden clouds, the Caribbean sky fades to lapis blue in the falling light. To the west, […]

photo credit: Diana Martens

Forest Green

Book review by Louise Ells

For Forest Green

“Art loved being a high rigger . . . . He loved being up in the trees, high above everyone and everything. Once he reached the top he’d settle back […]

Work

September, the season of beginnings, new notebooks, renewed energy for work, and for some, the new year. If you are still Covid working from home, the satirical poems below might […]

Finding the Perfect Home

What makes a house a home? Review of Open House by Jane Christmas.

credit: Combat Camera

Moral Hazards

Book review by Roberta Walker

Crowning the Virus: New Skills for the Pandemic

Jane Christmas made the switch from journalism to books while still in Canada, and has continued to write from her home abroad, which has been in the suburbs of Bristol […]

The Glass Hotel

Book review by Mark Sampson

photo: Air Canada

Back Again

Last week Canadian Writers Abroad reported on writers who opted to stay put. This week we hear from those whose plans were interrupted by COVID-19. D. W. Wilson had plans […]

Where Are They Now?

Back in March when Canadian travellers were urged to come home, I thought of the small community of Canadian writers living abroad. Would they stay or go? As Antony Millen […]

Cremona Square; Frutkin photo

Gathering Places

Photographer Vincenzo Pietropaolo and author Mark Frutkin have collaborated on a book that is a reminder of what Italians must miss during the Coronavirus shut-down of public places: Where Angels […]

Palestinian Literature

The drones placed an explosive device on the roof of the house, hovered upwards, to about four metres above, and paused with their robot arms dangling like wet, dead spider […]

Raining Books

Dawn Doig (nee Young), author of children’s books, currently lives in Cameroon. Hailing from Victoria, BC, her life abroad began in 1997, when she went as an audiologist to Vietnam […]

Allan Jones Ascends his Cliff

Sonia Tilson reviews Beyond Vision by Allan Jones (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018, 311 pages, hardcover). In this extraordinary autobiography, Beyond Vision (McGill-Queen’s University Press 2018), Allan Jones describes how he […]

From Fredericton to Berlin

Her Heart Still Beats in New Brunswick: Interview with Carolyn Gammon by Gabriella Goliger Carolyn Gammon’s writing career and life journey defy categorization. Her author portfolio includes steamy lesbian poetry […]

Travel and Loss

Fault Line Once in Iceland I stretched my arms between the continental divide Bumpy black igneous rock tangible crevice Going home Coming home always in between My heart a fault-line […]

photo: D. Martens

Homecoming

It’s been one month since the “abroad” part of my life was left behind when we returned to Canada from Jerusalem. A busy month, a discombobulating month. “Are you happy […]

photo: Eleanor Proudfoot

Sutherland’s Beasts

Since its beginning eight years ago, Canadian Writers Abroad has stepped away from the “abroad” to publish Canadian poetry, to mark the solstice or the equinox. This June, CWA presents […]

photo: D. Martens

Making Home

The song “Home on the Range” turns up in Isabel Huggan’s essay, “Someday You’ll Be Sorry” in her award-winning collection, Belonging. The song is mentioned as one of several that […]

Cooper

Catherine Cooper and Home

Catherine Cooper, The Western Home: Stories for Home on the Range, Pedlar Press: St John’s, 2014, paper.Catherine Cooper, White Elephant, Freehand Books: Calgary, 2016, paper.Reviewed by Debra Martens For this […]

Hot-Rodding: Jamie Popowich

Hot-Rodding: The Idiosyncratic World of Jamie Popowich’s Chrome Kissesby Mark Sampson Few Canadian authors living abroad are writing stranger fiction than Jamie Popowich. In his new short story collection, Chrome […]

Local Lit: Amos Oz

I finished reading last week the memoir by Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness (Vintage paperback 2005 translated by Nicholas de Lange), a whacking 517 pages of rather […]

photo: Debra Martens

Green and Levine

Working in silence, alone with your thoughts, writing can be a lonely business. But have you looked at the list of acknowledgements at the back of some books lately? They […]

Hansen at Solstice

At the turning of the season, Canadian Writers Abroad features a poet. This time we are publishing the poems of a poet quite unlike our usual contributors: Vivian Hansen lives […]

photo: Martin Riese

Ah, Paris

The review of Eva Salomon’s War by Gabriella Goliger was followed by photos taken in one of the novel’s settings. And here I am, following up a review of a […]

photo: Martin Riese

French Exit

Book review by Jane Christmas

By Rear Admiral Harley D. Nygren, NOAA Corps (ret.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Dodging Dominion

Here is a taster for the upcoming book review by Barbara Sibbald, of Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. The slave, Washington Black, explains why he chose to stay with his […]

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Nijmegen

Earle Birney is perhaps best remembered for his poems “David” and “Bushed,” which were mandatory reading in schools for a time. Birney was a poet, novelist, professor — and soldier.  […]

Dwindrim~enwiki at English Wikipedia. (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [CC BY-SA 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0) or CC BY-SA 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Tell Us A Story

“Where we did spend time was out on the land, a remarkable land, a beautiful land, a land not seen to this day by the most adventurous of Europeans, whether […]

photo: Debra Martens

Tel Aviv

The photo above is of the Eden Cinema on Lilenblum Street in Tel Aviv, taken October 21, 2018. It would seem the cinema is no longer in use for showing […]

War, Music, Love

Eva Salomon’s War by Gabriella Goliger (Bink Books 2018; review copy). Reviewed by Debra Martens The first person narrator of this absorbing historical novel is Eva Salomon, who is writing […]